Technical Field
This disclosure relates to medical instruments and robotic control thereof and more particularly to defining a remote center of motion for software based robots for medical procedures.
Description of the Related Art
Rotational X-ray C-arms are used in various interventional and surgical suites to acquire 2D and 3D images of an anatomy of interest. Minimally invasive surgery is performed using elongated instruments inserted into a patient's body through small ports. In robotic guided minimally invasive surgery, it is critical to not exert any translational force on the port, as this may cause injury to the patient. A remote center of motion (RCM) is a point that facilitates motion of an end-effector (medical device) inside the patient with zero motion at the RCM point. The RCM point needs to coincide with the insertion point for medical robots. However, conventional methods require manual entry of a point indicating to the system the location of the desired remote center of motion in a reference frame of the robot.
Surgeons who perform robotic guided surgery with systems that do not have an implicit remote center of motion in the mechanism design need to manually enter a position to impose a virtual remote center of motion to the robot arm. However, this can lead to errors and translate to difficulties during surgery.